“I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile.”

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One of our good customers recently wrote us an especially touching letter about two debut albums we share a love for: Led Zeppelin’s and Jeff Beck’s. After listening to them at length, he felt the need to put into words the deep and powerful feelings our records had given him. (Emphasis added.)

Dear Tom, Kenji, and the Better Records Team,

I am writing to share my absolute astonishment after listening to the Hot Stampers I recently acquired. To give you some context, I set up a rigorous shootout against my own collection.

For Led Zeppelin, I prepared seven of my finest vintage vinyl copies:

    • One UK “Turquoise” First Pressing
    • Six US copies (cut by RG or GP; pressed by Presswell or Monarch with △12703 / △18257 matrix codes, spanning the Broadway to Rockefeller eras)

For Jeff Beck, All from my brain memory not real records:

    • Two “Japanese” First Pressing and reissue
    • Two UK “Blue Columbia” MONO & STEREO Pressing and one EMI reissue

If the seven Zeppelin records that rivaled the HOT STAMPER were like 8mm film, then the HOT STAMPER was 70mm Cinemascope!

A vast, rich space—stretching from wall to wall, floor to ceiling—appeared right before my eyes, and the sound that burst forth passed right through me.

I was so astonished by the sheer difference in scale that I couldn’t believe it.

I kept turning up the volume, bathing in the sound like a shower.

When I played the UK Turquoise and GP/MONARCH records again at the same volume, the sound was so blindingly bright and overwhelmingly loud that I had to lift the needle after just a few seconds.

As for Beck, ever since I was a teenager, no matter how many times I listened to *TRUTH*, I could never be satisfied with its sound, so I ended up selling it. I’d concluded that while *TRUTH* is a matter of personal musical taste, it wasn’t a record that sounded good. However, after seeing *SKEPTICAL AUDIOPHILE* recommend this record, I decided to give it one last challenge.

When I turned up the volume, it was as if the band was right there in front of me, in the fifth row. I was sharing that space with them, and the sound came straight at me without any barriers.

It was as if I were actually there at the concert.

This was my first time having an experience like this with my home audio system.

This is what a “WHITE HOT STAMPER” is! What a blissful time I had! Warm, Rich, Dynamic, & Transparent!

P.S.

1. After finishing both records, I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile; my wife even remarked, “You look so happy.”

I can say with certainty that this was due to the chemical effects of the HOT STAMPER. I believe it resulted from a decrease in stress hormones like cortisol and an increase in the secretion of “happiness hormones” such as dopamine and serotonin.

Furthermore, after I finished listening and was tidying up the room where the records were scattered—something I’ve experienced several times before—my digestive system became more active. I attribute this to the relaxation effect of the HOT STAMPER. It’s likely due to the “brain-gut axis,” where my favorite music and the superb sound quality triggered parasympathetic dominance, stimulating intestinal peristalsis.

2. Considering the time, energy, and money spent tracking down this rare Zeppelin record, this is no ordinary man’s job. There is a Bible verse that says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.”

I offer my deepest respect and admiration, as well as my boundless gratitude and love, to the treasure hunters led by Tom, who have successfully completed this mission—a mission truly bestowed upon them by God.

Sincerely yours,
Nobu

Dear Nobu,

Thanks for describing so elegantly what it feels like to finally hear music you have treasured for decades sounding the way you always dreamed it could. I know well the feelings of bliss, exhilaration and joy that coursed through you. I’ve experienced them countless times myself since I first got into home audio fifty years ago.

There is a joy that cannot be expressed when music sounds so good there are no words to describe it. This is what audiophiles such as you and me live for.

Few have had the pleasure of experiencing it outside of a live musical event. We were able to do it with records, but they were very special records, the kinds of records few audiophiles know exist, or have any reason to believe exist. Fewer still have ever experienced such records. Indeed, we must count ourselves fortunate to have had the privilege.

You describe us as treasure hunters, which is a very good way of looking at who we are and what we do. We have been hunting for treasure for more than 30 years. Our dedication increased dramatically over the last twenty or so. By then we had finally given up on the false promise of the modern remastered record. (Fittingly, it was a exceptional straw that broke the camel’s back.)

You played our Hot Stamper pressings (Super Hot for Zep 1, White Hot for Truth) against all the copies that the conventional wisdom told you were sure to have the best sound. Now you know something not widely understood by the audiophile community, which is simply that when it comes to records, the conventional wisdom is not very good at predicting which pressings will turn out to have better sound.

This blog has well over a thousand commentaries detailing chapter and verse (to make use of a phrase associated with the bible) how this is simply a fact that cannot be denied by anyone who has carefully studied the matter.

You proved it for yourself. You did your own shootout. Who can gainsay the insights you acquired? Certainly not those who have never played one of our records. What evidence do they have to support their views?

Do they have a theory to base their objections on?

Is it more than a conjecture? A feeling? Some intuition? A form of knowledge beyond our understanding?

As you now know better than anyone, whatever they think they have to disprove the possibility of the Hot Stamper pressing, it is surely a crock.

I very much enjoyed hearing about the happiness you felt when playing such exceptional pressings of these wonderful albums. The joy of music is in many ways the greatest joy there is. It is the one thing that has driven me to pursue our hobby more than any other — in fact, to dedicate much of my life to it — and I have never seen reason to regret a moment of it.

Thank you for writing and brightening our day here at Better Records!

Best, TP

A Deep, Deep Dive into LSC 2323 – A Shootout Like No Other

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

Years ago, around 2005 if memory serves, I played a copy of the Classic Records remastered pressing of LSC 2323 and thought it was pretty good.

It seemed better than the Shaded Dog copies I had compared it to, which, based on the hundreds of other Classic Records titles I had auditioned up to then, was unexpected to say the least.

Unheard of is more like it. (That is no longer true — stay tuned for the story of the one Classic Records classical record that actually won a shootout not that long ago.)

Little did I know that the Shaded Dog pressings on this title are not remotely competitive with the right early reissues.

The best of the Shaded Dog pressings we could find, which just happened to have a 1s side one, came in tied for last with the one 70s Red Seal pressing we thought sounded good enough to make the shootout. (Most are terrible.)[1][2]

Some Inside Baseball

Most of the Shaded Dogs and Red Seals were needle-dropped, and all but two were eliminated before the shootout. It takes time and wastes money to clean and play pressings that sound hopeless, so a quick elimination round often precedes the cleaning process.

Back then it was tough to wrap my head around the idea that a Classic Record classical title could actually be better sounding than a Shaded Dog — it had never happened, so I knew there had to be more to the story.

The time to do a serious investigation of LSC 2323 necessary to get to the bottom of what was truly a head scratcher was not in the cards, so I shelved the project for close to the next twenty years. (Other such oddities have their own section here by the way.)

This title would have to wait until 2025 to go through a proper shooout, and when it did, naturally the Classic was part of the mix, which is the way we do things here at Better Records.

Why? Because every record with any hope of sounding good must be given the chance to show us what it can do. It deserves to be evaluated fairly, without the listener having any knowledge as to which pressing my be playing.

It turns out that side one of the Classic was passable, but side two — the side I had never played — was every bit as bad as most of their other classical offerings, which is very bad indeed.

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Grieg / Peer Gynt Suite / Barbirolli

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Edvard Grieg Available Now

UPDATE 2025

This is a very old review and one that may not be especially accurate as it was written before the advent of the modern record shootout. Pick this one up for cheap if you like.

Our current favorite pressing of the Peer Gynt Suite is the one Fjeldstad recorded for Decca.

1959 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – as of 2025 we’ve auditioned and reviewed more than one hundred and seventy titles, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to discover.

We think there are close to 50 that belong in any audiophile record collection worthy of the name.

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Peter Tosh – Legalize It

More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • An amazing copy of Tosh’s debut album with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • You won’t believe how big, rich and full this album can sound on a copy this good
  • A rough shootout — no other copy earned a 3+ grade on any side, and only one other was 2+ or better on both sides
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl they’re making – the Tubey Magic, size and Reggae Roots energy of this very special vintage pressing could not be beat
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The album’s highlight is ‘Why Must I Cry,’ a multi-layered song (co-written with Bob Marley) that conveys a sense of personal failure when fighting an uphill battle, whether it be against injustices of the world or within the confines of a relationship. Legalize It cemented Tosh’s position as a giant in reggae, and the album is one of the best albums of the genre.”

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Roger The Engineer Is Awful on the Early UK Pressing

Hot Stamper Pressings of British Blues Rock Albums Available Now

A hall of shame pressing if there ever was one.

The UK pressing of Roger the Engineer we played was pure crap.

Cool for collectors I suppose, but very bad news for audiophiles.

Your response to this news may depend on which camp you find yourself in. If you love collecting original pressings, we would put you in the record collector camp, not the audiophile one. Audiophiles are supposed to care about sound quality, so if the more original pressing is the one you want, then you are a record collector first and an audiophile second, if at all. Harsh? Let’s call a spade a spade.

Regardless, we ask that you please not buy into that record collecting / audiophile canard that the originals are always going to be the best sounding pressings. The hundreds of reissues listed here prove otherwise.

The original British pressing — true, we only had the one, so take it for what it’s worth — was a poor imitation of what was most likely on the master tape, as revealed by the Edsel reissues.

Maybe you have a good sounding one. We can’t say you don’t.  But we would be very unlikely to spend much money on an original import pressing after hearing this one.

And the domestic records we’ve played were clearly made from dub tapes, so they’re a bust too.

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Benny Carter – Jazz Giant

More of the Music of Benny Carter

  • Both sides of this vintage Contemporary pressing earned STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sonic grades or close to them
  • If you still think that Analogue Productions is remastering records properly, you have definitely never heard a real Contemporary that sounds as good as this one does
  • The music of this Jazz Giant comes alive on this copy, with space, size, clarity and richness that few other pressings can match
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Benny Carter had already been a major jazz musician for nearly 30 years when he recorded this particularly strong septet session for Contemporary … This timeless music is beyond the simple categories of ‘swing’ or ‘bop’ and should just be called ‘classic.'”

If you like the sound of Contemporary Records, you won’t find a better example than this. Midrange magic doesn’t get anymore magical.

It’s been several years since our last shootout, but we hope the lucky buyer of this copy realizes it was more than worth it. To find a copy of Jazz Giant that sounds as good as this one is a very special event indeed.

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Cream – Wheels Of Fire

More of the Music of Cream

  • Cream rocks on these vintage UK import pressings with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • The power and energy of these live sides is off the charts — punchy, open, and spacious with bass and WHOMP you have never experienced for this music, guaranteed (particularly on side three)
  • Everything you’d want sonically from a live Cream recording is present on this copy – big-time presence, an abundance of life, tonal correctness, and loads of Tubey Magic (also particularly on side three)
  • 4 stars: “…[Eric] Clapton is at a peak here, whether he’s tearing off solos on a 17-minute ‘Spoonful’ or goosing ‘White Room’ toward the heights of madness. But it’s the architect of ‘White Room,’ bassist Jack Bruce, who, along with his collaborator Peter Brown, reaches a peak as a songwriter…. [I]n many ways Wheels of Fire is indeed filled with Cream’s very best work.
  • If you’re a fan of Clapton and the band, this RSO UK import from 1968 belongs in your collection.

It’s exceptionally difficult to find even decent sounding copies of this album. We’ve played SCORES of original domestic copies, original imports, and all kinds of reissues over the years, and it’s very rare to find a copy that sounds this good on all four sides. (more…)

Henry Mancini – Charade

More of the Music of Henry Mancini

  • This copy is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience — talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny
  • If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1963 All Tube Analog sound can be, this superb copy may be just the record for you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A great Mancini recording made during the same fruitful, early-60s period that produced two other fine soundtracks of his, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther.”

This vintage Living Stereo pressing gives you a healthy dose of the Tubey Magic we love here at Better Records. An added bonus: the last track on side 2, “Charade (Carousel),” has absolutely no IGD on the glockenspiel or Calliope. Few copies will not be groove damaged on that track — we speak from experience here.

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Are You a Soundphile? I Used to Be One

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

UPDATE 2026

About 30 years ago I got hold of a Japanese pressing of Marriner conducting Haydn’s Toy Symphony and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and was blown away by the absolutely phenomenal quality of the Haydn. Listing the record for sale, I raved:

DEMO QUALITY SOUND! This is the best sounding Toy Symphony you will ever hear!

…all the little toys that play along with the music just JUMP out of the speakers. The recording is so transparent and the toys are so well miked it’s like hearing the work for the first time, or live.

Now we know definitively that this is clearly not true, assuming yoy have one of our Hot Stamper pressings of the EMI original. They are better in every way than the Japanese pressing, which is the one purporting to have audiophile sound.

If this sounds familiar to you, I’m guessing this is not your first visit to the blog or our site. There is almost always a vintage pressing with superior sound when compared to the audiophile pressings made from the same recording.

The problem is: You just don’t know which vintage pressing will have superior sound. Maybe they all will. Maybe none of the copies you own will. There is one, but how do you find it?

In order to get that answer, you have to know how to do carefully controlled shootouts, and not just once, but more often than not a number of them over a period of years. Whatever answer you may come up will most likely be provisional, not definitve, because that’s the only way the process of discovery can work when applying scientific methodologies to the solution of a problem like “which pressings sound best on record X?”.

We did the shootout in 2022 and found out that the best of the original EMI pressings are quite a bit better, a classic case of live and learn, as well as one of the hundreds of breakthrough discoveries we’ve made over the years. That’s what happens when you are in the business of playing records and then selling the best of them to audiophiles looking for superior sound.

I believe I had at least one or two UK EMI pressings to play against the Japanese ones, but all the details of how I came to this conclusion — a proto-shootout, carried out long before I knew how to do a real one — are lost to the mists of time.

Keep in mind that my stereo was dramatically less revealing back then. Also I had not learned how to clean records properly. Those two facts, combined with the underdeveloped listening skills that go with them, helped me to arrive at the wrong conclusion.

No, the Japanese pressing, specifically targeted to audiophiles, or “soundphiles” if you like, is not superior to a properly mastered and pressed UK LP.

If you have more than a handful of Japanese pressings in your collection, you can be sure that there is still plenty of room for improvement in your audio system.

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Deep Purple / Who Do We Think We Are

More British Blues Rock

  • A vintage British Import Purple Records pressing with two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • The sound here is big, bold and lively with real weight down low and excellent presence
  • The big hit song from this one was “Woman From Tokyo” and it sounds amazing on this copy — very natural with real texture to the guitars and lots of WHOMP down low

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